Bitcoin Forum

Lolcust, the creator of the ‘LolCoins’ (GeistGeld and Tenebrix) has explicitly stated that his intention is to open a money laundering service with the 7,700,000 coins he premined in both chains. Perhaps in his country money laundering is a time honored and noble profession, but in most of the civilized world, it is illegal. This post is intended to educate those not familiar with the legal system in the United States, and to explain why mining these chains makes a miner just as guilty as the worst element laundering money with these coins.  I know that there are a fair amount of people in the community who could care less about laws and prison and such. More power to you, good luck in your battles. This post is for those who do care.

Most of the time in US Federal cases involving 2 or more people, the charges brought will be "Conspiracy to commit <insert crime here>". The burden of proof required for a “Conspiracy” variant of a crime is far less than it would be for the “normal” charge. Most Federal drug convictions in the US involve the “Conspiracy” variants, as witness testimony is usually enough for conviction, with absolutely zero physical evidence. Usually the prosecution has to show that a person 1) knew about the conspiracy and 2) benefitted from it. Under the law, every person involved in the conspiracy is equally guilty. The prosecutors for the US Government use this to force snitching and plea deals. It is an extremely effective tool.

Here is how this applies to the current situation: These chains were designed specifically to enable a money laundering operation. This has been stated in many places on an open, public forum, on the very pages that have the download links. It can be reasonably presumed that anyone mining these chains knows about the creator’s intentions, and therefore knows about the conspiracy. Miner gets coins for mining the chain, and thus benefits from the conspiracy. Also, the encrypting part of the mining as well as securing the network would also be seen as furthering the conspiracy.

Under US law, this makes anyone mining these chains as guilty as whoever is laundering money through it. Whether they be an evil drug lord, a Russian mobster, or a terrorist organization. Not a US citizen? Perhaps you will be ignored. Though if a terrorist organization laundered money via these chains and successfully launched an attack…well the CIA is still running its ‘Rendition’ program I believe. Also note that the Feds do not need to catch everyone. Even a dozen or so convictions would justify the money spent and give them their photo ops.

It would also give them all the ammunition they needed to demonize and shut down all other blockchain based cryptocurrencies.

Even im just BTC miner, i had to say this.. FFS im happy that i live in Europe!

Yankees and their stupid laws! Remember that your coffee is hot when its served... if you dont remember that, you should re-read that warning sign in your mug again and TROLL some more... :) Isnt it fantastic that other countrys doesnt have to honor US Laws :)

GeistGeld/tenebrix aren't money though.

Some interesting points.

Some things you mentioned though just don't jive with me

1) "It can be assumed every miner is aware of the creators intentions".  No it can't.
2) "It will be used as a tool to demonize and shut down other chains". The pirate bay is alive and well in the US, I think they're a bigger target than a 3-day old cryptocurrency.
3) Also, your post screams of pure scare tactics.  The delivery of your information has no caution or humility behind it, you don't claim any legal background, you don't cite any cases to support your claim.


I'd like to weigh your evidence, but you don't give any.

Provide more info, less rhetoric.

No but they do have to honor extradition treaties.


Neither was E-gold.


1) Yes it can. The very pages that provide the links to download the software have the intentions written on them. No jury will believe that you read the rest of the post regarding the software and somehow skipped the lines regarding the laundry part and still downloaded and configured everything correctly. The accused would have to prove they did not know it. If you want to base your freedom on trying to prove a negative like that, go right ahead. Protip: There are a lot of people in the US Federal prison system who thought they could 'prove' they did not know about a conspiracy. 

2). Somehow I think kids sharing the latest Transformers movie is a slightly lower priority than a service enabling terrorist organizations to instantly launder huge amounts of money from anywhere on the planet. I have no idea why you brought up a public tracker anyway. The point I was making is that they could easily use the 'proven' laundering from LolCoins to go after all cryptocurrencies.

3) I could claim to be a Federal judge of 22 years, or a practicing attorney, or an ex-con, would it matter? There is no need for caution or humility in my statements, because I know I am right. I am intimately familiar with the Federal Court system, and a number of cases. If you don't know how to do your own basic legal research into a topic, then you are probably not going to understand what you read anyway. If you are not familiar with the concept of conspiracy in law, then perhaps you should start with Wikipedia and go from there.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)#United_States

It is your freedom, risk it as you see fit. I am simply explaining how a US Attorney can put people away for many years for mining. They try drug cases that are more difficult to prove than this every single day.

... so you don't have anything other than rhetoric.

Okay, thanks for playing.

I didn't read it, hell I missed the entire part about 7 million coins being pregenerated!
You assume much. 

Newsflash:  Nobody reads EULAs, either.

Ha ha ha haha.

Boy, this is absolutely hillarious. Could you please post this to Twitter or something ? (I can't pwomise a bounty, tho :-P )

I understand the part about "money laundering".
But how do you dry it without wrinkling it.

How could you not suspect a laundering operation? Look how white that labcoat is! -------> http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/resize_assets-images-Robot-Chicken-Scientist_web_380x253.jpg

What I have is the truth. What you have is a lack of understanding. From the wikipedia article I linked, since you seem to lack the basic ability to click and read:


Of course I doubt any amount of posting will satisfy you. There is enough there to prove my point, and I am not your paralegal/secretary/bitch. Go use Google and look it up if you care past trolling.


Newsflash: you are still liable for the EULA, whether or not you read it. Ignorance is not a defense under the law.



No bounty, thx. I don't want to install a client and help further your continuing criminal enterprise. Thx, tho.



With Bounty, of course  ;D

Awesome!

Do provide link here so I can put it on the website in some section or other :)


Nah, with people like you I don't even need to post bounties. Enough of you (allegedly) American attorneys-at-lol e-lawyering poetically about woeful nature of my humble projects and exact cases that allegedly might be relevant, and I will have all the PR I could ever need, for 0 GG/TBX/BTC/USD/JPY  ;)

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

P.P.S.:

All I intend to do, essentially, is exchange old, worn "postage stamps"  ;) for new ones I happened to get from a factory early on before it closed its doors to me and became public property  ;),  and a small fee in the form of a few extra stamps  ;).

Whether that makes all the owners of all the postage stamps manufactured by the same factory conspirators, is, quite frankly, not up to internet-based attorneys at lol to decide  ::)

WoW gold != proper money or else we wouldn't need blockchain based cryptocurencies at all. If it were so superior you would be laundering money with it instead of Lolcoins.

Nice scam with your chains btw, if either one goes to .01 btc your net worth would be about 77,000 btc. I imagine one could live nicely for quite some time in Belarus for that. Hell, one could live nicely in America for that much.

Care to actually support that argument ?

What is "proper" money and how is it different from improper ?

I can store value in WoW gold, convert them to other forms of value storage, barter and trade with them... looks like monies to me.



I would if I could, but I'm Belorussian and WoW is a mite problematic from here, besides, there already are sophisticated WoW-centric money laundries, and competition would be tough.


Quite frankly, bullshit since I won't be able to sell them off.

Of course, if their value goes to 0.01 btc AND actual governments start accepting Tenebrix as legal tender (lol), things will change  ::)

P.S.:

Where is the link to your tweet ? :(

Scary, really scary... What was the name of that  religion you are preaching again?

He seems to be an attorney at lol.

Attorney at lol is not a religion per se, but it might be considered a spiritual state akin to meditation :)

You can also do the same with baseball cards, Magic the Gathering cards, postage stamps, etc. Does not make them 'proper' money. Also, I doubt any form of 'proper' money is controlled by a single private corporation. You brought the 'proper money' argument in and how WoW gold is more like it than LolCoins. By your subsequent arguments cryptocurrencies are just as much 'proper money' as WoW gold is, since I can store value in them, exchange them for other forms of storage, barter and trade with them, etc. So which is it?


Not at once. You can't cash out 77,000 btc at MtGox right now even if you wanted to, let alone exchange all your Lolcoins for btc. 50 or 100 btc worth here and there will never be noticed though, and is still enough for you live comfortably in your Eastern European paradise.


It is called the United States Code (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/). The law of my land. Truth > willful misunderstanding. Most people don't get that until the gavel falls at the end of their day in court.

Antique postage stamps would make decent money, very deflationary too, and quite a chore to counterfeit. And they have a proper formal issuer (usually, at least)

In fact, antique stamps are a huge market


Ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha

US Fed reserve is not a governmental organization proper, IIRC.

Try again.


Per definition I use, "proper" money must have a formal issuer, which is true for WoW gold but not for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are   abstractions formed by exotic math and more akin to distributed database service than anything else. The BTC specifically is also a bit like antique postage stamps (finite amount, incounterfeitable, amount is bound to decrease)

But REALLY be "proper money", something has to be recognized as legal tender and have a "guaranteed" value (which e-gold did) at least in some country, however shitty and remote it might be.

Money laundering X-coins is thus at most, a metaphor, since they are not legal tender and have neither a formal issuer nor any guaranteed value, and are best described as an exotic "mathematical memorabilia" built upon a complicated distributed database service.


Last time I checked, block explorers do not have a capacity to "forget x coins here and there".


I see you are still waxing poetic.

Please show me the tweet link, mister e-lawyer :)

That argument (and a large bribe) might work in your court system. It most assuredly will not fly the US Federal Courts. While this might cause the Courts to legally recognize blockchain based cryptocurrencies as currencies, the downsides to that recognition far outweigh any upsides. The US has a host of laws dealing with money, and a case such as this would be a very good excuse for them to get cryptocurrencies regulated without actually passing any new laws.


If you cannot launder 50 or 100 bitcoins worth of currency from yourself to yourself, you a bad money launderer indeed.


What tweet? What are you on about?

EULAs have been struck down in courts, in part because nobody reads them.

I assume you expect everyone to take an anonymous attorney-at-lol's word for it ?  ::)


I like that "might" of yours, and an interesting "what if?" scenario (in the same way that "younderboy might be a lawyer since no laws of physics prohibit such a weird circumstance" is an interesting hypothetical ;) )


Again, I assume you expect everyone to take an anonymous attorney-at-lol's word for it ?  ::)

Also, exactly same (lack of) logic that you seem to apply to Cryptocoins applies to WoW gold, and WoW gold "laundry" would be easier to prosecute.

So do give me a PM when they get arrests, or better yet, convictions in the US for cases of "world of warcraft" not-really-money laundering.


Oh, I am indeed broken by your astute and in-depth assessment of relative merits of sneaking out an unspecified amount of coins from an addy everyone knows about without getting NOTICED (as opposed to "caught irl")

I see you are not only a powerful e-lawyer, but also a computer crime e-xpert.

You are DaVinci of our times, dude :)

Here-here



Which sort of strongly implies that you will tweet your e-lawyering fo' free :D

They should trust a Russian money launderer instead? Admittedly it is in your best interest to obfuscate and distract from the topic at hand.


Since it has been your stated intention from the beginning to launder money, you do not need to get caught 'irl'. Nor do you need to actually launder any money now. You have formed a conspiracy to break the law at some point in the future using GeistGeld and/or Tenebrix, and anyone who helps further either of those projects (by mining, hosting a pool, or an exchange, etc.) is part of that conspiracy and just as guilty under US law.

Really though, it is pointless for me to argue the intricacies of US law with a Russian money launderer. Especially the one at the center of this little criminal enterprise who has very little to lose and a very small chance of ever being brought to justice. I doubt you will lose any sleep whatsoever should anyone suffer for mining your chain. Everybody who ever breaks the law has a reason, whether base or noble, for doing so. Making you rich should not be the reason anyone goes to prison.



No, although I can see where that can be misread. Your command and grasp of American English and the idioms and slang are absolutely amazing for a non-American. Makes one wonder if you are who you say you are. Russian money laundering is a bit of stereotype, and if you scammed everyone and disappeared...well that is to be expected when dealing with shady characters from Eastern Europe, right 'comrade'?

In fact, I can't seem to find where you have been posting in any other language except English. Hmmmm....

Belo-russian, pretty puhleez.

And so far, your argument boils down to "it will be so because I say so". I think that's a fairly poor argument.


According to an anonymous intenet attorney-at-lol  ::)

Who can only repeat his statements over and over with no coherent argument. Everybody run and scream, an attorney at lol is on the case!


Belorussian.

I understand Geography is not part of your DaVinci skillset, amrite ?



How many people are in prison for laundering USD through WoW gold or those linden-dollar things ?  ::)

IIRC, 0

So go play someplace else and come back after at least one of those fairly straightforward schemes results in a conviction.


Not all are short term optimizers, comrade :)

Also, once again, Republic Belarus is (regrettably as a matter of fact) not Russia.

A нaвoштa мнe пicaць нa iншыx мoвax?

And yours boils down to "It will be ok because I say so...look a squirrel!". I think that is a fairly poor rebuttal.

Again it is painfully obvious you have no grasp of the US legal system or how it works. Your ignorance is not a defense for you or anyone else. I encourage any Americans reading this thread to consult a legal professional, even if it is an informal friend of a friend type of deal and discuss 'Conspiracy' laws. Anyone who has any regular dealings with the Federal courts in the US will know about them. You are right, they shouldn't trust me, and they damn sure shouldn't trust you.


Actually it is, as well as other skillz. The phrasing was intentional. Your response to it says a lot. BTW, I notice President Lukashenko got 79% of the vote in the last election. He must be a really a great guy to get that much support from his people.  ;D

No, but there are people doing time for money laundering with another digital currency, E-gold. The funny part is that the guys running E-gold got the time, even though they weren't the ones doing the laundering. Damn conspiracy laws. Link: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148720/internet_currency_firm_pleads_guilty_to_money_laundering.html

You might want to read that article and take some notes. It is far more analgous to LolCoins than WoW or Lindens.


Кoжны мoжa выкapыcтoўвaць Google Translate, тaвapыш ;)

But I am convinced you are Belorussian, an American would not have corrected me so many times. As I said above, it was intentional.

No, my argument does not include a rebuttal.

My argument boils down to pointing out over and over and over that your statements are just opinions of some anonymous dude who hypothetically might be American.

Also, I occasionally point out that very straightforward laundering schemes exist with other digital "sortakinda notreally moneysez" and so far resulted in 0 convictions.
OH WAIT A SECOND! Now that I think of it, the latter is actually an empirical rebuttal of your entire argument.

Game over, man. Game over.

 

Again its painfully obvious that you just make trite assertions :D


Consulting a lawyer never hurts, that I could get behind (lol agreement in intertube argument, even if a minor one..APOCALYPSE COMETH!  :D).

Srsly, Americans, always consult lawyers.

A Belorussian on the internet and an attorney at lol are telling you, in unison :)


He pre-mined votes via so-called "thugs" trick :D


E-gold had guaranteed equivalence to USD and a central issuer.

Game-gold and exotic abstract "units" spawned by eldritch mathematications do not have any guaranteed value  and of those two the abstract cryptothingies lack even a formal issuer.




Yeah, so I can be guaranteed that a legal entity will recognize my TBX or something as a form of USD equivalent ? Puh-leeez, they have no guaranteed equivalence to anything, much like baseball cards, exotic postage stamps and other shenanigans like that (all of which can be stupidly expensive in some markets, btw)

In fact, unlike egold (or even lindens) them crypto-thingies don't have a formal issuer, which kinda disqualifies them from being "real monies" (or at least, makes them "less money than WoW gold")


Well, at least that is settled

For the benefit of the readers who never visited the USA:

Bounty is the market-leading brand of the clothes-dryer sheets.

Cute joke, but somewhat inside-ry.

Ah thanks.

Now it is indeed funny.

Lupus_Yonderboy, did you get your law degree by watching Judging Amy reruns? I mean, man... huh, congratulations must be in order. :) Good boy, job well done!
But you know what, passing your bar exam in you basement, while jerking of to a Sears catalogue, will most definitely qualify you for some rants in obscure forums like this particular one.

Do you have a 900 number? I really like to have you on a retainer. You newer know, when one needs some hot air blown up ones ass.
Keep up the good job, boy!

Have fun in prison!

Ah yessss, indeed, indeeed ;)

Quickly Yonderboy, burn your mining rig before the CIA comes in its trademark Black Choppah ;)






 

bwuahahaha, too classic

OP you're in the same boat as we are now!  ::)

He'll make a deal and rat us out! We must stop him!

Quick, find me a hitman that accepts Geist Gelds ! ! ! :D

That was before you were forced to admit that you had premined 7.7 million coins for your money laundering operation. Once I found out about that I wiped the usb key containing GG and chucked it in a river.

The idea that a Belorussian could authoritatively hold forth on the US legal system is completely laughable. It would be like an American trying to give a Belorussian legal advice about what is and is not legal in Belarus. Here is the deal, I could care less if you scam these fanbois out of their btcs. Really. There is a sucker born every minute and there is an extremely high amount of suckers in this community, all trying to get rich quick on the next big thing. I really don't care if you take all their money. But there is the very real danger that your money laundering op can get people put in prison who have done nothing more than mine your chains. The fallout from that isn't just going to effect your pet chains either, but all of them, including Bitcoin. Because when they crack down, they are not going to differentiate between 27 different flavors of blockchain based cryptocurrencies. Everybody suffers.

Hmmmm, perhaps this is how you plan to take down Bitcoin. Maybe you are CH in disguise.

Nope.  I was one of the first ones to get on GG, and that 'fun-d' was mentioned in the OP. ("If it lasts longer than x days, I want to try this idea...").

Don't worry though, we can be cell-mates!

Edit: If anything, I'd wager you're CH, as CH has plenty of motive to use oh-so-similar scare tactics on GG/TB.  But I don't have that big of a tinfoil hat ;)

...

THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 3,2,1... *poof*

Started trading on a pair of GG / BTC

Commission is 0.3% per transaction.

https://btc-e.com/gg_exchanger

We have already found that your claims are completely unsubstantiated and not supported by actual cases involving pseudo-monetary constructs.

We now also know that you never read first posts to the end even if the text is fucking bolded :)


Lupus, y u no read  :P ?


No, actually I'm Satoshi pretending to be a Belorussian with (admittedly) limited grasp of coding and a penchant for x-coinsez.  ;)

You edited your first post after you restarted the blockchain. Hell, you edited it several times in between starts. So really, cut the crap.

You aren't Satoshi. You aren't fit to lick Satoshi's shorts. You are a Belorussian scammer who has managed to convince a whole 20-30 suckers to mine your scamcoins. Again, I don't care if you take their money/clock cycles, they deserve it.  They do not deserve to spend time in a prison for your greed tho. That was the point.

Good luck

But I am right, Matthew. You will not find anyone who practices Federal Law in the US that will give a qualified legal opinion contrary to what I have stated. Disliking the messenger or the manner in which it is delivered does not change the truth.

Have a nice day

 ::) And I am Satoshi.

Maybe if I will post it a million times it will get a million times more true, right ?


Yes, because you can provide us with such a person's opinion, signed and in writing, right here ?


Fortunately, moderatorz have all of them edits sitting in the DB, so you can PM them and settle this for good.



This claim is problematic to prove ;) or disprove ;)

Everyone can actually be Satoshi, nobody knows where he is or what he's up to.

He has become a Spiritus Loci :D


Worry not, they won't, because your opinion is not of a court or legal expert, and hardly of any merit (they should of course talk to a real attorney at law, that never hurts)

Good day to you, sir.

Destroying evidence (and then admitting to it on a public forum)? Regardless of how any theoretical trial turned out, that could get YOU sent away.

Gawd, this is teh funneh

The US Attorney's office has a standard policy of 'first through the door'. Meaning that the first one to tell on their fellow co-conspirators usually gets a lesser sentence or even immunity if the case is big enough. An international money laundering ring that has no problems in dealing with terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda is definitely big enough to qualify for immunity. In fact,as a patriotic law-abiding citizen, it is one's duty to make the existence of such an operation known to the authorities, and to provide any necessary assistance they may require. Pools and exchanges further the conspiracy in much larger ways than individual miners, and if any of those are in US controlled territory...

Coolio.

Hey, can you hook me up with CIA? ^__^

CIA probably isn't interested in you so much. But perhaps your local office of the Кaмiтэт дзяpжaўнaй бяcпeкi would be interested in your unlicensed internet activities...Oh looky, they have a nice website with lots of contact infos. http://www.kgb.by

Do tell them that "lolcust" is intending to launder Ghost Gold.

Lupus reminds me of BEX.

Actually, if you're not that's sad, because I need to get in touch with someone @ silkroad administration / dev / support ^__^

So basically this thread is just fear and doubt with a side order of trolling.

Actually it's 100% troll with neither fear nor doubt :)

I would expect nothing less from the bitcoin forum.

It has been over 6 months since I have been on any IRC channel, anywhere. Am I being impersonated?


I stand by what I wrote. I did not just suddenly decide that I wanted to fuck with Lolcust and make up a bullshit thread. I am *very* familiar with conspiracy laws and their consequences in the US. Again, consult an Attorney that practices US Federal law, and lay out the situation, and they will agree. Lolcust is obviously biased since it is his scam project. I have nothing to gain or lose if people do or do not support his chains. He has premined several million coins in both chains. Anything that detracts from them detracts from his wallet.dat, so he has to convince everyone that there is nothing to see here.

I have said my piece. The information is here for any who may want to read it. What they do (or fail to do) is out of my hands. My conscience is clear. I could not stand by in silence and watch this unfold without at least attempting to warn others of the legal ramifications. Good luck.

Yup, and I am *really* Satoshi  


Yes, always consulting a legalperson is always good


Clairvoyance much ? (given exactly zero arrests for cases of "laundering" abstract virtual items with no guaranteed value, very strong clairvoyance)

Though I would like to hear how such a discussion would proceed :)